Community restoration of the degraded landscape in Uganda

I am Wakulira Mathias, Project Coordinator for Masaka District Landcare Chapter (MADLACC) located in Masaka district, Central Uganda, 125km south west of Kampala Capital City. I am an agriculturalist, coffee and tree farmer who is in love with nature, happy to work with rural communities and their interaction with trees and crops.

My favorite tree among others is the umbrella tree (Maesopsis emiini), a native tree with a number of benefits that include; environmental, timber and an agroforestry tree contributing to income and food security with the capacity to sequester a lot of carbon over a long time. I have this tree well intercropped in my coffee farm to provide appropriate shade, especially in the dry period of the year, and I still get quality coffee beans.

My country Uganda was named the “pearl of Africa” in 1908 by Winston Churchill. Back then, the country was blessed with a good climate, characterised by generally uniform temperatures in the range of 20 to 25°C throughout the year, rich and diverse nature. There was predictable, reliable and sufficient rainfall, natural forests and food security throughout the country. However, over time, human activities and population increase, alongside other factors have caused climate change to happen, mainly through deforestation. The country’s forest cover has reduced to 12% in 2020 from 46% in 1900. This has created an inevitable need for Ugandan citizens to contribute to the restoration of degraded landscapes through any means possible, be it planting more trees on farms and also in the degraded forest areas. With the support of the International Tree Foundation, our goal is to plant 31,600 trees; including timber, fruit and agroforestry trees species. More importantly, we want to plant trees that addresses the challenges of women and youth and people with disabilities. We also want to facilitate collective decision making and action at the household level, as well as contributing to intra-household food security and increased incomes.

When the project was designed, it involved a selected community in the project area. However, we soon realised that people outside of the target community were also coming for tree seedlings and attending some of the training. This helped us to understand that many communities had realised the deforestation problem and were seeking for solutions. The biggest change in the community was the skill transfer to our community members who have planted trees and also started to raise their own seedlings at their homes. This is very important because, at the household level, they will pass on these skills to their children who will raise and plant more trees on the farm even when the project has ended.

The country’s forest cover reduced to 12% in 2020 from 46% in 1900.

As a coordinator and a facilitator in this project, I am grateful to be part of the team that works with the farmers to plant more than 30,000 trees both at household level and in the primary schools where we work. The project has changed my perception of collective action among communities to plant trees. I am greatly encouraged to continue to plant, and also to mobilize community members to participate in tree planting for nature and all the associated benefits. Among the trees planted at my home are fruits and other agroforestry trees. I have become a point of reference to learn from, I am also self-sustained with various fruits and can earn income by selling fruits.

Climate change is a serious challenge for smallholders; they have come to appreciate and understand this because they have experienced it. If it is not addressed, the livelihoods of the farming families will be greatly affected, and lives may even be lost because the land productivity has decreased so much. The current situation is such that some of the family members can afford only one or two meals a day. My message to the world is; climate change is real. We need to work together to address it collectively. If we do not so, in the near future, there will be no net winner. However, the opportunity to reverse it still exists because the world knows what to do and it can be done to reverse the situation.

Wakulira Mathias is the Project Coordinator for Masaka District Landcare Chapter (MADLACC), in Uganda.

Jon Mackay is an artist, illustrator and silk screen printer who works through the medium of silk screen printing in the music industry as well as widely exhibiting in galleries. This artwork was created for Wilderness Festival 2022, a boutique, multi-arts and music festival.